


when I was torn by love I could not still

by imadetheline



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Prompt Fill, author bullshits the force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28524018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: All he knows of his son is that he blew up the death star; he is a great pilot and immensely powerful, unlimited potential… but he also knows his son wants nothing to do with him. The rejection on Bespin still stings. But he should know more, was robbed of more. He should know who his son is, as a person, not trivial facts half the cursed rebellion knows. He’d thought perhaps his son’s childhood home could offer a glimpse of his personality. But the more he looks, the more he finds nothing. Everything has been stripped bare.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 22
Kudos: 113
Collections: Luke and Vader Bonding





	when I was torn by love I could not still

**Author's Note:**

> title from the poem "Heart's Needle" by W.D. Snodgrass
> 
> written for an anonymous prompt on tumblr:
> 
> "Hello!! I really love your fics; they’re easily some of my fave Vader and Luke stories in the entire fandom. The way you write just makes me go 🥺 every single time. You have absolutely IMPECCABLE characterization. Also, if you’re still open to prompts... I was thinking of Vader going to Tatooine to see if he could get more info on Luke, stumbling upon a holo of a happy toddler! Luke, and feeling deep grief and rage over all the years with his son that were stolen from him"
> 
> first off, thank you so much! you have no idea how much this means to me!! And I hope this is along the lines of what you wanted, my brain kinda went with this so I hope you like it! :)

He hates sand. Now, even more so than before. It somehow manages to find the cracks in his armor easier than any enemy ever has, and it drills into his metal joints, making every movement even more painful and grating than they already are.

He never thought he’d be returning here of all places, thought he’d left this Force-forsaken planet behind in another life. The two suns just beginning to dip the horizon mock him with their unchanging gaze. Somehow, with the sand in his joints and the heat on his armor, he is both a boy looking towards the future, full of hope, and a young man filled with grief, a thin body in his arms.

No--he clenches his fist tight until the leather creaks--he is neither of those. He is Darth Vader, and he is only here because of his son. Rage whips up again at the thought. When he’d learned his son had grown up here, in the same place…  _ Anakin _ had not been able to escape. He’d wished for the chance to kill the treacherous Kenobi again, a thousand times over. How dare he steal his son, his only child, and bring him here? He flicks his gaze across the horizon, to the dunes casting lengthening shadows over the sand, and to the homestead in front of him. There is nothing else for miles. Just as there had been when last he’d been here. He finally forces himself forward, sand kicking up around his heels, as he approaches the blackened and soot-stained homestead. 

His troopers had certainly done their job. And scavengers had done theirs not long after. Whatever had been left has long been picked over, sand blowing into broken open doors. Vader stalks through them quickly, and has to slow his steps, remind himself of what he came here for. Everything in him is screaming to leave this place: leave this place where  _ she _ is buried. But his son grew up here, was raised here. He needs to be here if he is to learn anything.

All he knows of his son is that he blew up the death star; he is a great pilot and immensely powerful, unlimited potential… but he also knows his son wants nothing to do with him. The rejection on Bespin still stings. But he should know more, was robbed of more. He should know who his son is, as a person, not trivial facts half the cursed rebellion knows. He’d thought perhaps his son’s childhood home could offer a glimpse of his personality. But the more he looks, the more he finds nothing. Everything has been stripped bare.

The wind whistles where it weaves through rooms, singing of the emptiness, the loneliness. A broken door swings open and closed, banging against the stone walls in the silence. Vader rips it off its hinges, and the noise ceases. His cape flutters at his feet and the wind whirls around him, and already he regrets stopping the door’s noise. Anything would be better than this confounded silence, his respirator somehow drowned beneath the sound of shifting sand. He doesn’t dare rage or destroy, though. The silence demands to be felt.

The Force is whispering. It’s underfoot, it’s in the wind, in the sand. He tilts his helmet, listening, straining to understand. He has not had to try so hard to understand the musings of the Force in so long, but this is indecipherable, neither light nor dark, it just is. 

He almost growls in frustration, anger rising in his chest again--he hadn’t noticed it was gone in the first place--but then,  _ there. _ Something catches the last rays of sunlight coming over the hill and spilling into the depression in the earth. It glints, half-covered, and the wind swirls around it, tugging at the sand, slowly unearthing it as if the Force is giving it to him. He calls it to his hand with barely a thought.

It’s a holo, old and outdated, strangely undamaged by sand and flames. His metal fingers twitch around it, and for one moment, he wants to crush it, never know what it will show. For some part of him knows, whatever it is, that it will change things. The Force is whispering it, here, in this in-between place, neither urging him nor warning him. His emotions are hard to find. There is death and pain but also light and love, and a strange swirling of the two in the eerie silence.

Before he can convince himself otherwise, he flicks it on. The image flickers to life, and the silence is broken by young laughter. A toddler wobbles into the image, unsteady on his feet, but a woman is hovering close behind, a smile on her face as she laughs too. The child’s joy is infectious. Vader feels a smile tug at his own lips, pulling at the aching scars.

The woman then swings the child up into her arms, and there’s a deeper chuckle from out of frame. She kisses the boy’s forehead as he laughs and grabs for her with chubby hands, “Amazing, Luke!” she calls, and something in Vader’s chest--where he’d long thought there was only emptiness--shatters. 

The holo crackles as it ends, and silence rises to fill its space. Vader stands frozen, the innocent metal disc glinting in his open hand. The holo didn’t show color, but he imagines Luke’s blond hair, his blue eyes. The stone behind him cracks with the force of his emotions, echoing loudly in the silence. He’d had so much stolen from him! He should have been there when his son began walking, growing, talking. His anger is swirling, thick in the air around him. Sand whips into a spiral, him at the center. Kenobi had taken this from him; these guardians imitated the true family he could’ve given Luke. He is glad they are dead, glad they have paid for their crimes. Power and rage are swirling in his veins. He should have been allowed to know his son.

But then the Force is pulling him from his thoughts, violently, screaming of danger. The sand whipping around him in clouds dissipates to reveal a hooded assailant. Vader’s saber is ignited--red light flooding the walls of the homestead's open circle--before he registers it. Another red blade meets it, and the Force is singing with hatred and rage and power. He doesn’t recognize the presence.

It hisses and lunges again. Vader tucks the holo into his belt and blocks. His opponent’s face is cast in shadow, but they are short, shorter than he’d expected. As they jump, and again their blades meet, he is surprised at their speed, agility… and power. They drive forward, and Vader is forced to take a step back, his own surprise coloring the Force.

And then their blades are interlocked again, the other person leaning into their momentary advantage, and he catches a glimpse of yellow eyes. He spares a second he shouldn’t, to push at the hood with the Force. It falls back, and his blade slips in shock.

A smirk spreads across the boy’s face as he pulls his saber back, spinning it in one hand, “Don’t recognize me,  _ Father _ ?” The last word is drawn out, mocking. And then his eyes flash again, anger twisting his features, and he yells, lunging. Vader barely manages to block in time to avoid being cut in two. The Force tells him that it isn’t real, even as it conjures the image, but his focus cannot be drawn from the sickly yellow of his son’s eyes.

Luke seems to notice because he smiles again, no trace of joy as he speaks, still pushing his saber against Vader’s, “Is this not what you wanted, Father?” He laughs, and Vader almost flinches at how different it sounds from the laugh in the holo: so empty, so cruel. “After all, it’s you who made me this way. You have only yourself to blame!” Luke pushes past Vader’s defense and lunges. His saber burns a path across Vader’s chest, and he laughs again. And then the sand is swirling around them both once again. The red of Luke’s saber and the yellow of his eyes fade into the clouds of dust as his laugh echoes through the emptiness. 

When the sand settles, Vader glances down at his chest and finds it unharmed. And yet, it still burns, tearing at him with fear and sorrow. He cannot dredge up the fiery anger that has fueled him for years and sharpened his focus. It slips between his fingers, leaving him lost in a sea of unfamiliar emotions, but mostly one he has not felt in decades, one he has not allowed himself to feel, has buried deep: guilt.

Why had the Force shown him that? Why here, why now?

“You know why, Father.”

He pivots sharply, cape snapping around behind him and lightsaber igniting once again. But this Luke, standing calmly in an empty doorway, doesn’t seem to notice the harsh red light. Vader’s eyes immediately flick to the boy’s eyes, and he’s surprised to find himself relieved to see the bright blue intact. Luke smiles as if he can sense his father’s thoughts, his clothing--the same as Vader had glimpsed on the death star--is light enough to almost blend into the sand as if Luke had risen out of it.

Vader deignites his saber and probes Luke’s presence; he’s not surprised to find it unfamiliar. He is glad of the vocoder now as it cuts out the sadness he cannot suppress, “You’re not here. You’re not him.” He knows it’s true, but he says it anyway, needs to convince himself.

The apparition doesn’t seem to mind that he knows it is not Luke. It just smiles softly, “No.”

The Force is whispering around them, calm and content, urging him to ask, to understand. He understands nothing. “Why?” His voice is as monotone as ever, but somehow not-Luke understands, understands the fear, the desperation.

It tilts its head, confusion painted onto the features, “Is that not what you wanted, Father? What you would have raised me to be?”

Vader doesn’t know anymore. Everything is muddled. “I didn’t-”

“You wish for my devotion, and yet you would turn me to the dark,” the boy cuts him off, beginning to cross the space between them. His steps do not disturb the sand; there are no prints behind him. “You know the ways of the Sith, Father, as well as I do. Devotion and power: there cannot be, there will not be, both.”

Vader shakes his head, fist clenching at his side, “It is the only way to protect you from the Emperor. The Light is weak; it cannot help you.”

Not-Luke is in front of him now, as short as the real Luke as he looks up at Vader sadly, “And so the son becomes the father. Would you wish this on me?” The figure gestures at the suit, and in response, the pain--in his chest, lungs, the scars--flares, and his self-hatred grows.

Vader cannot answer. His hand reaches for not-Luke, resting on his cheek, surprised to find it solid beneath his fingers. The boy’s eyes close, and he leans into the touch. They stand there for a moment, Vader’s respirator drowned by the absolute silence.

And then not-Luke’s eyes open, and they are horribly, sickeningly, yellow. Vader jerks back, but then they are as blue as the sky again, bright and infinitely sad, so similar to  _ her’s. _ The apparitions whispers, “I see,” and steps back. Vader wishes he himself could see, could understand. The sand is swirling around them again. Vader desperately reaches for the figure as it steps further back into the cloud, but it is out of reach. Not-Luke is barely visible, his bright eyes flashing in the storm of yellow as a voice rings out again, but while it is Luke’s mouth moving, it is not his voice, “It is your own choices that stole the boy from you, that could still turn the boy.” It softens infinitesimally, and Vader still cannot place it, “But it is also your choices that could save him. What doomed you, could yet deliver him… and the galaxy.”

And in a second, the sand has settled, night has fallen, and the silence is broken. Vader’s respirator is once again loud in the Tatooine air. The wind is quiet and does not carry whispers that shift the ground beneath his feet. He is alone, and he does not understand. His hand drifts towards the holo in his belt. Somewhere, across the galaxy, a blond-haired boy cocks his head, listening intently, and a tendril of light reaches for Vader, and not all is lost.

**Author's Note:**

> (prompts for luke and vader fics are still open if anyone wants to request something on my tumblr)
> 
> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


End file.
